


The Boy in 2187

by sunlightsmarrow



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Crushes, Cuddling, M/M, Modern AU, Neighbors, cruddy apartments, non-descript ex-military pensions and jobs, poe listens to 80s trash but secretly has good taste in music, public service workers, what more do you expect out of me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:08:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5732203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlightsmarrow/pseuds/sunlightsmarrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn has just moved in to room 2187, across the hall from 2188 where the Man with the Jawline lives.  This man is Poe Dameron and he has a cat named Kylo and gives way more than he gets, but he's a nice guy and is helpful and Finn takes a liking to him.  The problem is, Poe takes a liking back, and it's not exactly what Finn was hoping for.  That is, until he realizes that it's just what he wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah there are pacing issues but just bear with me here. Let me know what you think (even if you think it's trash) and this entire thing is just me admitting that I am stormpilot trash and there's going to be fucking singing and 1 AM duets just hold your horses here.

2187\. The numbers on the door were all the same color, unlike the room across the hall, where the first eight was gold, but who cared? Finn set the box that held his mixer on the floor and fished around in his pocket for his keys. A few spare coins clattered to the floor as they flew out of his pocket and he flinched, but managed to find his keys and started to wrestle with the lock. There was a deadbolt that he had to open, as well as the actual lock in the doorknob. The paint peeling off the door and the stained carpet being any indication of how his lock adventure would go, Finn was going to have a hard time.

He muttered a curse under his breath and shouldered his door and it gave a disturbing crack, but didn’t budge. He kept working with it until he heard the click of the deadbolt, but the knob itself was an issue. He shook it, twisted, and he felt like he was in a Bop-It commercial before he tugged the keys out of the lock and stared at the door as if he would prefer to just bust it down and get his mixer onto the kitchen countertop without so much as a second thought.

“Can’t get the door open?” A voice with a slight New York accent startled Finn out of his rage. The man walking down the hall with his arms full of groceries had a sort of playfulness in his dark eyes. His handsome face looked like it was about to offer help, instead of mocking him. Hell, Finn’s mother had even sewn his chevrons onto the side of his jacket and he’d be damned if this guy made a comment about the military man who couldn’t open a door in an apartment building where the rent was just over three hundred bucks a month (and Finn got it for less because they offered a military discount and his pension wasn’t exactly what anyone would call luxurious.). Sure enough, the Man with the Jawline regarded the chevrons and his playful eyes rested once again on Finn’s face, and he set his groceries down outside his door (2188). Stepping across the hall, Finn could smell the scent of his soap and he heat of his body, which was dense and compact. The Man with the Jawline held out his hand for Finn’s keys and asked if he could have a go.

“Yeah. Sure, I mean, new apartment and--”

“Don’t sweat it.” The Man with the Jawline may have needed to be renamed to the Man with the Fucking Amazing Smile, but Finn didn’t really consider that because, well, he was getting his door opened by this guy who by whispering a few sweet nothings and a gentle caress of the brass knob managed to get the door to pop open. “I’d suggest,” said the Man, “That when you leave, just deadbolt the door. These are pretty shitty-looking apartments, but the people here are okay. I lot of veterans, like yourself.”

“So you live across the hall?” Finn took the mixer out of its box and set it on the counter, which was a white linoleum with brown honey-oak trim, something straight out of the eighties. The Man nodded and stretched out his hand. 

“The name’s Poe. Poe Dameron.” Finn took his hand and repeated then name. 

“Finn.” They exchanged pleasantries, but Poe rolled his wrist forward to check the time on his watch. 

“I better start lunch. Do you need help moving anything, or was the mixer the extent of it?”

Finn hesitated. So the Man with the Jawline had a name, and he was offering to help him move in, and really Finn didn’t know what to expect when he had signed the lease. Perhaps, looking at the rent price, he would find himself holed up with the unsavory folk of the city, but this Poe character seemed like a nice guy, and Finn thought that if Poe helped out, he’d order pizza and they could have lunch together. He said as much, and that smile crinkled Poe’s eyes again.

“You don’t have to do that, buddy. Besides, I was going to heat up some pizza anyway. The local joints aren’t too great, and I doctor mine up some. Let me,” he insisted. “You have enough on your plate already.” Before Finn could respond, Poe had left the room and was unlocking his own door. Finn returned to the hallway, his pulse racing as he watched Poe enter his own apartment, brashly colored from the looks of it. The slightly shorter man kicked his door partially shut behind him and Finn stood staring before he turned and went back to his car to get more of his stuff.

Poe’s apartment could be considered ‘vintage Bohemian’ if it were anything to be labeled. His walls were painted stunning colors which would offend some, but with a brown sheepskin rug on the stained carpet and a well-worn couch/bed with a tied fleece blanket over it, the walls were muted enough to be what Poe would refer to as ‘charming.’ He had his host of classic movie posters and odd gifts here and there of people’s travels, and of course his DVD and CD collection took the spotlight next to a secretary desk with a wall-mounted monitor overlooking the purposefully rustic desk. 

The apartment, due to its price, was a studio, and so the blanket box that served as a coffee table was full of blankets and pillows. An array of other art hung on his walls, from a Chinese fan that a friend had brought back for him to some melted crayon art that Poe admitted to have made in high school (but it looked cool, and if he were Dolly Madison, that was his George Washington portrait.).

Poe’s kitchen was a lot like Finn’s. What he lacked in a mixer he made up for with a spatula jar filled with a dozen tools and a toaster over that reheated pizza like no other. It was on these counters that Poe took out his groceries and put most of them away before stepping over to his computer and turning on the power strip which revved the desktop to life. Taking a moment, he set up a playlist and started working on preheating the oven.

Poe knew it was 80s trash, but he loved it and so as he sung along to Kenny Loggins, hips swaying as he tore open the pizza boxes and tossed them onto the oven rack. Setting a timer, he came back out into the hallway just in time to find Finn returning back down the hall with more than he could carry in his arms. Poe lunged forward to grab a pile of clothes that was sliding off the top. To be fair, Poe couldn’t actually see Finn behind all of the things that he had stacked up in his arms, but from the way that the worn clothes fell into his arms and Finn grunted when the box hit Poe’s stomach was enough to confirm his suspicions. 

Poe gently tugged at the box in Finn’s hands and they worked together, fingers brushing against one another awkwardly as they finessed their way through Poe holding a box and the pile of clothes and Finn holding two others. They worked their way into Finn’s apartment, which was a bit bigger than Poe’s with a single bedroom. Finn gave some direction, and Poe entered the bedroom and dropped the heap of clothes on the floor. He shuffled through them with his feet as he crossed the room to place the box on the floor, which he realized was a bookshelf. 

“Would you like me to help you build some stuff?” Poe returned to the living room and Finn was heading out the door, but turned to look at Poe properly. Finn swallowed, his mouth falling open in a sigh. Across the hall, the oven chimed to indicate that it was ready.

“I don’t have tools and I really do want to compen--” 

“Really, it’s my pleasure.” Poe’s bright smile attempted to reassure Finn, and the slightly shorter man nodded. 

“There are only a few more boxes.” He inclined his head and Poe followed him down the hall, his mouth working at amiable conversation, discussing jobs (Poe worked as a firefighter and Finn wasn’t quite sure yet), family, and pets (Poe had a cat and Finn wanted to get one).

They returned with the last of Finn’s things and Poe set the boxes in his arms on the counter next to Finn’s mixer and went back to his room to put the pizzas in the oven. Kylo had jumped up on the counter and meowed at his master, who reached out to scratch behind his ears. Poe picked him up and held him up on his shoulder so that Kylo was looking away and he came into Finn’s apartment. 

“Hey, Kylo,” said Finn, giving the cat a pat on the back. It was a black manx with a white spot on his nose, and he immediately purred at Finn’s touch. 

“He likes attention,” commented Poe as he set the cat down on the counter. “And he knows his people, so he won’t run away.” Poe kissed him and helped Finn unpack his kitchen. They unwrapped dishes and set them in the cupboards as Kylo explored his new surroundings, sniffing and clawing at the carpet to claim it as his own, eventually deciding to watch his master’s new friend from a sunny spot on the floor.

“Thank you for helping me,” said Finn. “I mean, I don’t know what I expected coming here. This is a bit of a big step for me.” They had finished putting the dishes away and Finn insisted that Poe not do anything else until tomorrow, or at least after lunch. Speaking of, the timer on the oven ‘dinged’ and Poe pushed himself forward to pick up Kylo and take him back home. Finn followed into the apartment and rooted around in Poe’s cupboards at Poe’s request to get some plates. 

“Beer’s in the fridge,” said the leaser. And so they ate, sharing jokes and getting to know one another. Kylo, of course, was present for all of this and protested his lack of attention by winding himself around Finn’s feet.

“So you don’t have a bed,” Poe stated matter-of-factly, his foot gently brushing past his pet to nudge at Finn’s boot. Finn’s eyes snapped up to his host’s and widened at the implication. Poe was trying to be nice, but there was just the hint of something else there and Finn was not in the mood for that. He figured that Poe’s handsomeness was just a fact of life and not something that was affecting him, but there was this weird stirring in his chest and he shoved it out of the way to respond.

“No. I was thinking of getting one tomorrow. I have a sleeping bag.”

The look of indignation on Poe’s face nearly frightened Finn. When he asked what was the matter, Poe responded, “I work night shifts and my door’s always open. Just sleep here. I’ll be out of your hair around eight thirty, and so you can come in whenever. Kylo might bother you some if I forget to give him his snack, but I can show you where that is. Until you get a bed. No veteran is sleeping on a goddamn floor.” Poe stood and took his empty beer bottle and plate to the sink. Finn sat in silence as he finished the last of his drink, and then he joined his friend at the sink, their shoulders brushing. 

“I can take care of this,” said Finn, hip nudging Poe aside. The older man apprised the younger, teeth briefly catching at his lower lip before responding.

“I’ll go get my toolbox.” A playful slap to the shoulder, and Poe was off to root around in the hallway closet.

~~~

As promised, Poe’s apartment was deserted around nine o’clock. They had worked together to make the book shelf and the rest of the build-it-yourself furniture that was set up decently in Finn’s apartment, but now he sat on the couch bed thing (he didn’t really know what it was called) propped up with pillows and wrapped in Poe’s blankets. The room was chilly and Finn had no idea where the thermostat was, and he knew better than to open the window and let the cold air blow out the window because they did pay utility bills and he wasn’t about to have Poe spending more money on his behalf.

The movie that Finn was watching was a classic musical. He enjoyed them and was proud of his voice (unrefined, but melodic). He had seen this one before and hummed along a little at one of his favorite parts. Kylo was sitting on the blanket box curled up on one of the blankets that Poe had left out and he opened one eye lazily to eye Finn, who eyed him back. 

“Can I help you?”

Kylo rolled over and stretched before curling back up again, and he sighed audibly. Finn paused his movie and sat up, the blankets pooling around his waist. He wrapped his arm around Kylo and picked him up and set him on his lap. The cat blinked at him with an irritated expression and Finn rolled his eyes before rubbing his ears and then stroking down his back. Gradually, Finn could feel a purr starting in his chest and Finn lay on his back, setting the cat on his chest.

“You and I should be good friends,” he said. “Or at least me and your master.” Another glare from the small animal through the purring, and Finn set his laptop aside (careful not to disturb his acquaintance) and closed his eyes for sleep.

 

Poe’s shift ended at four and he made it home at four thirty four. His unlocked apartment was inhabited by a sleeping Finn. Kylo, on the other hand, had commandeered the blanket that must have been on the human because Finn was just in his clothes, asleep on the bed. Poe, his mind a little dull from the time that he had spent waiting for sirens to go off (or lack thereof, in his case), shucked off his jacket and laid it on top of his sleeping friend. 

“Excuse me, Kylo,” said Poe, picking up his pet and tucking him under his arm. He pulled up the blanket that the cat was sleeping on and stretched out on the floor. The cat did not appreciate the close quarters and ran off into the bathroom, but Poe was perfectly content to grab a few hours of sleep before he would go with Finn to the furniture store to pick out a bed. If he wanted him to, because Poe most certainly didn’t tell any of his co-workers about the new veteran who had moved in across the hall and how Kylo had taken a liking to him, and his supervisor most definitely did not tell him to shut up about his ‘little girl crush’ over the whole radio system. No, Poe was subtle and suave, and his illusions of grandeur led him deeper and deeper into the recesses of slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worked some on grammar as per request. Once again, let me know your feels.

_I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair, and send him on his way._

It was the tune that Finn had attempted to sing himself the night before, and it roused him from his sleep. It took him a moment to realize that the voice was organic and coming from the shower, but once he had done so, he shot a glance at Kylo. The cat was sitting calmly on the desk (on a paper, no less, the only spare one in the room) and staring at Finn as if to say “Why are you surprised? Don’t all humans do this?”

The voice, Poe’s voice floated up and down in a pretty tenor. While the intonation was good, it was missing a bit of the bravado that the original had, but it didn’t really matter. His was on the lower side of the tenor range, but he was pleasant to listen to. Finn shifted under his blanket.

However, it wasn’t a blanket. It was leathery and soft and had this smell to it that was a little smoky and had that soapy aroma that he had picked up yesterday when Poe had brushed past him. Perhaps Poe had forgotten that Finn was there or had intentionally draped his jacket over his sleeping friend. Finn reasoned that he probably forgot and decided to sleep on the--where exactly did he--? The blankets had been folded up and were all sitting on the blanket box, and that might have given some indication. Finn definitely would have woken up if Poe had climbed into bed beside him, but even with his ‘mi casa es su casa’ attitude, that might have been pushing it for not knowing each other very long. 

The water cut out and the singing died down to a low whistle, and now Finn found himself humming along to “Nothing Like a Dame.” Finn decided to get up now, but as he was righting himself, his arms got caught in the jacket. He struggled, working his arms out and shimmying his shoulders, but in his panic of being seen in another man’s jacket, it made matters worse. It was as if the damned thing had a mind of his own. Finn had finally gotten one sleeve of it off when he realized that Poe had come out of the bathroom. The slightly shorter man’s hair was plastered to his forehead in unruly curls that a towel must have just passed through. He looked immaculate in his ‘obscure band’ tee-shirt (it was one Finn had never heard of) and dark jeans that hugged his toned legs.

“‘Morning,” he greeted. “Sorry if I woke you up, buddy. I tried not to belt. Did you sleep--You’re wearing my jacket.”

Finn didn’t remember resolving to shove his arm back into the thing, but it had happened. Poe’s jacket that smelled like the residual smoke that he hadn’t quite scrubbed off his body was wrapped around his shoulders and covering his arms. Finn opened his mouth to apologize and started to shrug it off his shoulders but Poe stilled him as his warm eyes gently took in the sight of his friend. A sort of excitement lurked there and Finn’s pulse rose to uncomfortable levels. He shouldn’t be so excited over a look. He had only just met this guy, and now he felt all awkward, and so he figured that the best course of action was to return the borrowed (stolen?) property.

“No! No, no, keep it. It suits you.” A muscle in Finn’s jaw jumped and Poe kept staring at him longer than was necessary, his bottom lip getting trapped by his teeth again and Finn knew he was blushing and that trying to hide it would make it worse.

“What do you want for breakfast?” Poe had changed the subject by snatching up Kylo and propping him up on his shoulder, rubbing the place where his stub of a tail met his back and the cat immediately slammed his neck into his master’s, his purr filling the room. Finn scratched the back of his neck and followed Poe into the kitchen. “I was thinking that I’d show you one of my favorite places. It’s a few blocks down the street, an easy walk, get you acquainted with the area some. They might be hiring, and I was looking for a second job that pays better than volunteer reimbursements.” 

Finn wouldn’t really admit that he thought Poe’s rambling was cute, but it was, and if Poe was looking for a job, maybe Finn could apply, too.

The veteran agreed and headed back to his room to change and get a shower. It didn’t take long, and within twenty minutes he was ready to go: teeth brushed, hair in order, and add just a touch of cologne. He was dressed similarly to Poe, a flannel shirt stretched over his bulky muscles and dark jeans hugging his hips. He also wore Poe's old jacket for the occasion because frankly, it was warm and he liked the fit. Finn stepped out of his apartment (it was still in unnerving disarray) and shut the door softly behind him. Poe was waiting for him in the hallway leaning against the door frame. His body hugged it as if he were part of the structure itself, and Finn most definitely didn’t stare.

He imagined a wink, and the two of them were headed down the hall together. They called the elevator and stood together in silence as they waited for it to clatter up to their floor. Soon, it was silent and Poe pulled the old door open and shoved back the grate. The two of them stepped in and Finn replaced everything, and after pressing the ground floor button, they were on their way.

 

The walk to the diner was pleasant. The late-autumn air was crisp but not too cold. The sun was shining through the azure sky and the buildings around them, though old, were mostly well-kept and freshly painted.

At length, they made it to the place. Its brick exterior and huge windows showcased the 1940s decor, which odds said hadn’t changed since the diner’s opening. They made their way inside past a large wait, which was to be expected for 9:30 in the morning, and Poe announced that they were a party of two.

A flurry of language passed Finn that he didn’t quite pick up, but there was yelling and bizarre responses and something about it was breathtakingly nostalgic. The diner workers shouted back and forth with one another, and Finn realized that it was old-fashioned diner lingo. He snuck a glance in Poe’s direction and noticed that his dark eyes glimmered with excitement. 

“Come here often?” Finn nudged Poe, who was shaken from his attention to the waitresses that bustled about, as well as the chefs that were yelling things that were plainly unintelligible. 

“One of my favorite places, actually,” he responded. They were called up to a booth. Poe shrugged off his jacket once they reached their table and hung it on the hook that had another space for a hat. Finn’s bright eyes scanned the area, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

They ordered water and coffee and perused the menu. Making very difficult decisions, they settled on their breakfasts (The Works for Poe and a buffalo chicken omelette for Finn) and finally resolved to staring at each other across the table. 

“I saw you were watching _South Pacific_ last night.”

Finn nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. “It’s a good one. You were singing this morning.”

Poe laughed, something that surprised Finn and he looked at his friend as if he was in danger of sprouting another head. “I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

“No, no you sound good. I was just--I did a lot of that in high school and I just sort’ve got into it.” Poe hummed his approval and took a sip of his coffee himself, eyes matching the color of Finn’s, which had some creamer in it. Poe took his black, forever claiming that all beverages were best that way.

“Well, then thank you. So you sing, too?” Again, Poe’s shoe pressed against Finn’s and again, Finn’s stomach did bizarre things. Poe’s eyes never left his face, eyes playful and bright, watchful. His mouth worked, tongue darting out to lick the coffee off his lips and lips tucking in between his teeth at the bitterness of his beverage.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Finn didn’t let it sound confrontational, but he dropped his gaze from his friend’s face and there was a silence that Finn was sure someone was going to die over. Perhaps it was the man sitting at the counter adjusting his sweatshirt after a particularly large meal, but Finn was going to go into cardiac arrest if someone didn’t break it. He wasn’t going to let it get this bad. He had just met Poe and this side of his sexuality wasn’t supremely explored yet (as if he had much of a chance to with his background), and so everything was terrible.

“Like what?” As if that helped. Finn opened his mouth to speak, but their toast came out earlier than the rest of their food and the waitress proved to serve as a decent enough interruption to the cacophony that was going on in Finn’s head. Poe grabbed his knife and a little serving package of jelly and lathered up his toast, thankful for something to do with his hands. 

Taking a bite of the crisped bread, Poe’s face was a little more reserved as he chewed contemplatively. They sat together in silence for a while, merely two friends eating toast and taking in the atmosphere.

“Hey,” said Finn, impulsively kicking out and making contact with the side of Poe’s calf. He pointed with his knife to a paper under the neon clock that read, “Cooks wanted. Part-time, must be able to work nights, show proficiency in learning new recipes. No experience necessary.”

“You come here often enough, and it’s plural ‘cooks,’ so why don’t we apply?”

“We?” Poe’s eyes were trained back on Finn’s face, eyebrows raised. He was surprised that he wanted them to work together, and he had to have more skills than for flipping burgers, but it was a start. The honesty in Finn’s face confirmed Poe’s suspicions. 

When the waitress came around again, Finn spoke up and asked about the ad. “You need cooks?”

“Yes. We’ve been looking for a while now, since the owner will be retiring. Says he wants to train some new guys. You boys interested?” She turned to look at the paper, her busty silhouette fitting in with the old-fashioned setting. Poe and Finn looked at one another.

“I’d like an application,” said Finn. He snuck a sip of his coffee as the waitress turned for Poe’s answer. 

“I--I’ll get back to you.” He was flustered with the way that there eyes raked across his face and down his body. She touched his shoulder and he stiffened. Her fingers lingered on him as she walked by and Finn had to hold back a sea of giggles. With a questioning look, Poe laughed back, but it was merely reactionary; a natural attempt to fit in with his company.

“Now you know what it’s like,” said Finn, mirth glittering in his dark eyes, “to be flirted with when you never saw it coming.” The waitress returned with a few pieces of paper and a pen.

“Fill this out whenever you can, honey." Another wink went Poe's way and the color that tinged his cheeks was too pretty for Finn to laugh, but he worked at forcing one out anyway. 

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” The sly smile playing across Poe’s face made Finn want to kick him, but he would be the better man and keep his feet to himself.

“I’m not answering that.” Finn definitively bit into his toast and continued to work his application, ignoring Poe’s hum of amusement. “They say that there’s no experience required. I mean, they did have me on mess duty for a while, so I guess that means I’m overqualified.”

“It’s a job.” Poe's encouraging tone led him to take a sip of his coffee and regard his friend. The little frown of focus made him smile and he opened his mouth to speak when he felt a vibration at his hip and a high-pitched squeal.

 _“Dameron, Lorenzo, O’Mally, and all District 3 units on call to 327 Hemlock.”_ A tired woman’s voice came over the intercom and Poe swore.

“Box me up and grab me an application,” he said pulling his jacket off the hook. “I’ll see you tonight.” His muscular legs carried him out of the diner and into the crisp air. His boxy form made the scene look old-fahsioned. It was as if Poe were someone who didn’t quite belong in the 21st century. He looked classic, a man they would put on sub-par romance novels. 

Once Finn couldn’t see Poe anymore, he set his pen down and asked for a box to put Poe’s food in. He’d be hungry when he got back, Finn reasoned. He asked for another application and when the waitress left to retrieve one, he noticed that Poe had left his phone sitting on the counter. It didn’t have a password, and so Finn the only reasonable thing to do. He’d return it, to be sure.

After paying the bill and collecting his and Poe’s belongings, Finn headed back toward his apartment to begin furniture shopping. He had a long day ahead of him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wee bit of anxiety, hurt/comfort, and what Finn calls a paradigm shift. (Read: Finn has this huge-ass crush and doesn't know what to do about it).

Poe had cut the sirens as when he pulled the fire engine into the driveway of 327 Hemlock Street. It was a nicer house more in suburbia than in the heart of the city. Neighbors were still a concern for the spread of the fire, so Poe sent his navigator to clear out the neighboring houses while he jumped out of the big red truck. Flames licked out of the windows and holes that had been burned through the siding and Poe ran across the street to touch base with the fire chief, Leia Organa. She had been working there for years and had even recruited Poe back when he was sixteen to volunteer, and since then they enjoyed a pleasant and focused relationship. 

He had to fight through a sea of people to get to her. Policemen were anxiously awaiting the firefighters and Poe could hear the third engine coming down the road, for they had been second behind the career guys. 

“All people are safe. There’s a cat and a dog in there, if you can find them. The blaze started in the baby’s room, so be careful going up the steps.” Leia got a good look at Poe and nodded to him. She had lost her husband years ago in a fire and since then Poe was like a son to her, and she hated sending him in.

Poe ran back to the truck and strapped his harness on. His gear was heavy. He was used to leaning forward to balance himself, and soon he had an axe in hand and had9 started walking toward the building. 

His voice was muffled as he passed Leia and gently touched her arm. “See you in fifteen minutes.”

“Keep communicating, Dameron.”

And he was off. Already, other firefighters were inside, fighting the blaze, but Poe knew that the house was a goner. The door was wide open and he stepped inside. The heat hit him with a slap and he made sure to keep his breathing even as he crouched to see through the smoke and his adrenaline worked his pulse up. The smoke was thick and the heat was ridiculous. He switched on his headlight and started walking through the house. He crossed the remains of a living room to the corpse of a kitchen, shuffling through to see if his feet hit anything living. Finding nothing and realizing time was of the essence, he worked his way back.

The interior fighters worked on the kitchen and Poe doubled back, feet stomping on the ground as he went to ensure that the floor beneath his feet was still solid. He saw the steps that led upstairs around the back of the living room. Some of the crewmen had come back out to fight in the living room, and the kitchen fighters came in to join. 

There was a massive racket coming from outside. Over his intercom, Poe heard countless people telling everyone to get out of the building. The engines were honking their horns and there was a general rush as people filed out of the building. Poe ushered people passed him and took a sweeping glance around the room. Casting his eyes upward, he dashed back under the lentil just as the main support beam of the second floor fell through the ceiling right where he had been standing moments before. He took a deep breath as he felt his stomach stretch across his gear. Most of the ceiling was down and he could see the smoke escaping through the hole in the ceiling. More debris came raining down and charred pieces of drywall hit his head as he backed into the kitchen.

“We have a mayday on Dameron.” It was Snap Wexley calling out on the radio. Leia took over.

“Poe! Poe, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I can hear you.” Poe’s raspy voice came over the intercom and he could imagine Leia’s look of relief. “I’m in the kitchen. Are there any patio doors or anything? The homeowners should know.”

Silence but for the roaring of flames and Poe’s oxygen tank monitor alerted him that he only had a few minutes left. He remained calm and took deep breaths through the sweat and heat to make sure that he didn’t waste any of it in a panic.

And the sounds came again. The engines were honking and he could hear Leia’s voice coming through the com for him to move, to head straight back and find someplace safe, to crouch under a table, but he could hear it as the building creaked. The wall he was standing next to collapsed and fell into the living room and Poe jumped back, startled. His breathing hitched and the beeping from his oxygen tank became more and more urgent. 

His hand tightened on the ax and he started for the back of the kitchen wall. By God, he would hack--

 

“Poe! Shit, get him out of his helmet. He can’t breathe. Help me with his arm. There. Fuck, you’d think they’d make this shit--”

Poe gasped a clean breath and his dark eyes shot open. Something warm and sticky was on his face and God, he was so hot right now but they were stripping him and had his jacket off. He blessed the lawn sprinkler system they had going. Something soft and wet was over his face for a moment, but soon it was shoved away and someone called a name and--

“Look at me.” A young woman stood in front of him and Poe blinked slowly before he could focus on her. She had sincere eyes and was watching him watch her as she moved a finger back and forth and shined some absurdly bright lights in his eyes.

“Looks like a minor concussion. The gash on his head’s probably the worst of it.” He was moving, and Poe realized that they had put him on a stretcher. He watched the sky disappear as they put him into an ambulance. The EMT and a few others hopped into the vehicle and they sped away, sirens wailing.

“I need to get back to the station. My phone...I gotta tell--” Poe remembered that he had left his phone at the diner and groaned in frustration.

“Shh…” One of the male EMT’s patted his arm. “Do you have any pets?”

“What?” Poe’s face crinkled up in confusion, but he realized what he was doing. The young man was staring at Poe’s vitals and he took measured breaths. It was part of his job to keep the patient calm, and Poe was most definitely not calm. In a fire, he was perfectly okay, and even when things didn't go as planned, he was under control, but he had never been so close to things going so terrible wrong before. “A cat. Kylo. He’s sweet, but he has attitude. He’s taken a liking to my friend Finn. We were at breakfast when I was called over. He’s a good kid. Sweet, smart, the most gorgeous eyes you’ve ever seen…”

~~~

Fifteen minutes after Poe had returned from the hospital, Finn was knocking softly on his door. Poe was sore and exhausted and smelly, but he picked up Kylo whom he had been petting and headed for the door to invite his guest in. His friend’s bright eyes roved over Poe and the subconscious nose-crinkle prompted Poe to keep his mouth shut about his endeavors.

“I found a good price for a bed off of Craigslist. Mattress and all for five hundred bucks.” If Finn had a reason to pay attention, he’d pick up the signs that Poe was out of sorts. His eager smile and overly enthusiastic congratulations should have triggered skepticism in Finn, but it had taken so long to find something suitable that he was ready to move on with the concept of moving in.

“You need help picking it up?” Poe tried. Honestly, he did, but he was so exhausted that it slipped through. The little flicker of understanding on Finn’s face gave it all away. To his credit, he couldn't help the bags that formed under his eyes nor how he had hunched his shoulders forward in exhaustion. Poe had never been so tired in his whole life and he would have loved if Finn hadn't figured him out, but the concern that filled his face was enough to indicate that Poe had failed. Today had not exactly gone how he had planned.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize, of course you're tired." He grabbed Poe’s arm and it was everything the shorter man could do not to irritably shrug him off and go help, but he was just too tired. Soon, he was sitting on the bed and being coaxed back to lay on his side. Finn was unlacing the other man's shoes and setting them down carefully on the floor. Kylo came over to sniff them and decided that he ought to jump and investigate further.

“Realize...No, buddy. I’m fine. It’s been a long day. Their cat didn’t make it.” And they walls fell in when I was in there and I needed to tell you as soon as I woke up but I didn't want you to worry. I'm so sorry for running out on you this morning. Poe wanted to apologize for all of it. The last thing he needed was Finn to worry about him, but it was happening and he supposed that there was nothing he could do about it.

“I’ll tell the guy to bring it tomorrow. Chinese for dinner?” But his words fell on deaf ears. Poe couldn’t have truly been comfortable for he looked to be curled into the fetal position. His arms were crossed over his chest and his head was buried into his pillow. If one could be aggressive-looking when sleeping, Poe managed the look quite effectively. But he still managed to be beautiful. There was still some blood on his face and upon further inspection, Finn discovered the extent of his injuries.

It was imperative to wake Poe up at regular intervals to make sure he was still okay, and so at the first twenty-minute interval, Finn had Poe stretch out. The firefighter’s shirt rode up some and a sweet caramel strip of skin stared Finn in the face for a full forty minutes. His skin begged to be touched as the life-radiation rolled off of it. Finn settled with resting his hand mid-way up Poe’s ankle, fingers gently stroking as his friend slept. At the third twenty-minute interval, Finn roused Poe for good. 

“I’m ordering Chinese. What do you want?” After arguing for six minutes over who would pay the bill after determining that only crab rangoons were not a sufficient dinner and yes, the did have to get the General, Finn shoved Poe toward the bathroom and the fireman rolled his eyes. He took a left into the bathroom and let the door fall closed behind him. Poe began to strip off his clothes. He knew he smelled bad because his olfactory system did in fact work, but he hadn’t realized how badly. His clothes were a sloppy mess on the floor, but as he turned on the water and stepped into the shower, relief washed over him. He didn’t want Finn to figure it out, but how could he expect that he wouldn't with someone who had been in the military? The thousand-yard stare was tell-tale enough. Poe viciously scrubbed his body, angry that he had shown Finn enough to warrant his panic.

It did feel good, though, scrubbing the soot and stink off of himself. He was able to smell the soap on him after a while. The smell led his eyes to flutter closed and he finally enjoyed the water cascading over his skin.

When a few minutes had passed with only warm water rolling down Poe’s well-muscled body, he shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. Poe re-clothed himself and re-entered the living room. Finn was sitting on the bed petting Kylo. The little one was happy to sit there and arched his back so that Finn could scratch him. He hadn’t looked up, and Poe was happy to stand and stare as the domestic scene played out. Kylo got off balance and rolled over, because in typical cat form, he made no mistake. A smiled affixed itself to Finn’s face, and he did finally look up at Poe. 

The firefighter remembered what had happened hours ago and felt a twist in his gut. They never had found the cat. The family could have loved it like he and Finn loved Kylo. They could have been petting her and scratching her butt the night before like Finn had been doing. 

Finn knew and Poe wanted to hit something, but he stood up, Kylo jumping to the bed, and apprised his friend. 

“Please, Finn. I’m fine.” The look on the black man’s face was that of concern and compassion and Poe was going to explode because it was too much already. He had this emotional turmoil going on, anxiety, affection for Finn, and some form of nostalgia. It could bring him to his knees, and it almost did, but the Chinese had arrived and Poe ducked out of Finn’s attempted embrace to get the door. The taller man brushed past him and paid the deliverywoman before shutting the door and letting the food fall to the coffee table.

“Listen. I know you don’t want me to get close, and I get that. I was getting shot at. I know. But--”

“Do you have that application?” Poe’s stomach churned some more and he knew what was going on. He needed something orderly and predictable and he’d back back to normal. “I want to fill it out.” He could have died today. It had shaken him, and so he needed something that could quell his anxiety. “I like to fill them out,” he said. He was almost childlike the way he shuffled forward to the coffee table to get the food and bring it back into the eat-in part of the kitchen. He set it down and retrieved some plates. He brought a beer out for Finn and a glass of milk for himself before sitting down and prying open the boxes of rice and the container of General Tso's chicken.

And so they say down together like they had that morning, only this time Poe didn’t notice as Finn stared at the beauty in Poe’s suffering, because if he had learned anything it was that the struggle that Poe felt was something that drove his compassion. Truly he had seen honest people in the most dire of situations, and all that Poe was was good and honest and sweet and selfless. Finn had witnessed so many of his friends become self-centered and narcissistic as war raged around them. Poe's half-dry hair and the smell of soap on him reminded Finn of the morning that they had started the day on, and now he felt that there had been a paradigm shift for the better. it was obvious now that they cared for one another and had become friends in their own weird way. It was good for Finn, and he smiled to himself as he watched his injured friend fill out the application that would allow them to work together. Finn was glad to have Poe in his life and diligently ignored the breathtaking horror that threatened to consume him at the idea of Poe not making it.

Finn didn't notice it at first, but Poe’s foot inched forward as he took a moment to dish up his plate until it made contact with Finn’s. The veteran looked up at Poe with a glimmering fondness in his eyes. A gorgeous blush played against skin that was pale with exhaustion, and again Poe was beautiful. This time, Finn didn’t pull away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...ten years later holy butts....but I just re-watched TFA and needed to get some things out of my system. Hopefully I can be a bit better with updates, but I don't truly have a plan for how this is going to end, so I'm sorry D:

Poe laying on Finn’s bed was something that Finn could get used to, but at this very moment it wasn't helping with other matters at hand. The guy had come from the Craigslist ad and the three of them worked the bed frame, mattress, and box spring into the elevator and down the narrow hall into the room. Poe was surprisingly knowledgeable about the exact angles required for the best results, and so he was instrumental in their success. Finn nearly had to pin him down to get him to stop lifting things, and so Poe settled on giving directions.

“Dameron, I swear to God if you don’t let this man carry the headboard…” the thing was monstrous and weighed a good forty pounds by itself. This was not something that Poe Dameron needed next to his injured head.

They had finished the work in about half an hour, but as soon as the man had left, Poe flopped down on the unmade bed and groaned.

“I think they gave me some sweet painkillers, but I didn't go to the damn pharmacy to get them.” He half-moaned his words and dramatically threw his arm over his eyes. Finn grabbed his shoulder and rolled him over such that he was nearly falling off the bed, and in self-preservation, Poe caught his balance. His fingers gripped the mattress as half of his body continued to slide off, and with a whimper he fell off the bed.

“You want me dead, don’t you?” Those huge brown eyes gazed up at Finn, but too much pain was in them for them to express true childishness. 

“Hungry, Dameron?” Finn’s strong arms wrapped around Poe and he lifted him up and sat him on the bed. Absently, Finn smoothed his hair back. The firefighter’s breath hitched when fingers grazed over the shell of his ear. Finn’s hand stilled, and their eyes met once again.

“I would say so,” he responded. The way that Finn’s fingers traced down Poe’s jaw was enough to make the older man close his eyes at the sensation. “You have leftovers from the diner?” Poe would have smiled at the sheer will be was exuding in not merely melting into the mattress at Finn’s touch, or much less press forward and claim what had been nagging him, maybe for a while now. 

‘Shut up, Poe. He’s just making sure you’re okay. Tone it down a bit.’ The fireman chastized himself and took a sobering breath.

Poe pushed upward and stood. This time, he was steady on his feet. He headed for the kitchen, his fingers carding through his thick curls before he landed a pained look on Finn’s open fridge. No light shone from it because it wasn’t plugged in. 

“I’m concussed and I still manage to function,” he jested. Leading the way to his apartment, Poe pushed the door open with his hip and nearly fell into his living room. Kylo eyed him as he walked past and hopped down to follow them into the kitchen. When Finn entered, the cat greeted him with a meow and clambered up to the bar that overlooked Poe’s sink. The animal had managed to knock down enough bills and junk mail to have a nice little spot carved out for him where he could rest comfortably on a two-week-old newspaper. It had been his project when Poe was at work, and to the cat’s amusement, Poe hadn’t managed to actually pick up the mail that was strewn across the floor.

The cat watched the two humans stare and converse with each other and if he could, he would have smiled to himself.

~~~

They had finally managed to get jobs at the diner: Poe was the head cook and Finn worked in the back as his assistant. The dress code was rather non-existent, so the boys came in in junky shirts and jeans, comfortable and functional in their new environment. The waitress whom they had met weeks ago introduced herself as Moz, and she said she had been there for as long as the diner itself.

Poe had his pager strapped to his belt. It sat there, blinking contentedly. They’d shied away from calling him in since the accident, but Leia had been in pretty consistent contact with him to monitor his progress. She had even come by last week with a sorry excuse of a pot roast just to check on him and her favorite cat, Kylo. She had been pleased to meet Finn, whom Poe had talked about quite a lot. 

But now, Poe was getting shown the ropes. He was introduced to what he was told was going to be his best friend: the stove. It was a monster of a thing that creaked and wheezed but it worked like a charm. Years of grease stains were all over the surface giving it a shine that no amount of scrubbing was going to free that stainless steel from. She was a BB-8, top of the line for the seventies, which was the last time the kitchen had seen a helping hand. 

Finn was faring just fine, since he had had mess duties during some of his time in the military. He had worked with some of the jargon before, but for the most part this was all new to him, especially the dirty looks he got from this ginger kid named Hux and his girlfriend Phasma. They seemed perfectly disgruntled standing there chewing gum throwing potatoes through the chopper and into the simmering fryers.

Poe had begun to rattle off orders in a language that was still a little unfamiliar. Finn hummed as he mixed egg and spices into the massive bowl of ground beef. He swayed as he formed the patties and put parchment paper between each one to keep them from sticking together. A loud crack of bubble gum snapped him from his one-man musical. The startled veteran looked up and saw Hux and Phasma staring at him. 

“What?” Finn spoke as if he had missed something that someone had said to him.

“Show tunes. Disney, no less?” Phasma blinked her black-rimmed eyes. Burgers simmered behind her, and Finn wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t going to let them burn. She had on a tee shirt with a flaming skull on it and ripped black jeans. Her platinum blond hair had been pulled up into a messy bun. “Couldn’t you do something a little more modern?” She hardly made eye contact with him as she busied herself staring at the water-damaged ceiling tiles.

Finn grinned and cleared his throat. Musicals had helped him through some of his rougher times in the military, and coming home to find out what he had missed was thrilling when he heard of an all-PoC musical that was making huge waves. And so he began: “How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished, in squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?”

Hux and Phasma stared at him as he continued, but Hux leaned over, “Who the eff is this?”

Phasma shrugged, hopped down from the counter, drew her hands up her boyfriend’s thighs, kissed him, and strutted over to pull burgers off to the warmer. At this point, Finn had moved on to slicing rolls, still rapping away, and eventually Poe shot a stern enough look through the window to get Hux back to making another fresh pot of coffee. 

~~~

The months drew on with late nights in Poe’s room, and eventually in Finn’s as it finally got furnished. There was hardly a difference anymore between their apartments, since they had practically moved in with one another. Being at the end of the hall, they had their doors open most of the time so that they were free to go into each other’s spaces whenever they wanted. 

On the eve of Poe’s six month anniversary of his head injury, the boys sat back, feet propped up on the ottoman that was Poe’s coffee table, beers in hand, a pizza between them, and Friends playing in the background. They sipped together in silence as Ross fumbled around Rachel, but soon Poe didn’t really notice. Tilting his head back against the worn fabric of the couch, he stared at Finn who was absently staring into space. Poe slowly slouched down, his eyes becoming heavy. It was late: they were on their fourth episode of Friends and had worked a long, busy shift at the diner. He leaned over just enough that his temple rested gently on Finn’s shoulder. The veteran stilled, slowing his breathing and training his gaze hard on the wall. Poe’s breathing slowed and his entire body relaxed, and Finn shifted a little, throwing Poe off balance. The firefighter jerked awake and stared bleary-eyed at his friend. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, shifting away so that they were no longer touching. Finn noticed the cold, since Poe was no longer stretched along his side, and Finn looked over at him. He was met with glassy eyes the color of shattered beer bottles on the beach at sunset. Finn’s mouth fell open, and all of a sudden, Poe’s hands were fisted in Finn’s jacket (Poe’s ex-jacket), and Finn drew him up so that Poe’s head rested on Finn’s chest. Poe’s movements were awkward from the few beers he had had, but he nestled in, enjoying the warmth of his friend’s body. He and Finn were close, and if Poe was terrified of fucking it up with Finn by telling him what he really thought, he pushed the thoughts from his mind because if he ruined this, their friendship, he’d never forgive himself. He’d rather they be here, in this are-they-or-aren’t-they nether (the Ross and Rachel effect, incidentally) than alone in his apartment with only a cat to keep him company and a floormate who wouldn’t dare meet his eyes. Finn’s hand absently stroked down Poe’s arm, toying with the hem of his sleeve and then skittering against his tan skin. God, if only the kid knew what he did to the Latino. 

“There’s no need to apologize,” replied Finn. He tucked Poe a little closer and moved his hand up to toy with those thick black curls. “I think...” he sighed, pausing. It was that one Friends episode where Rachel and Ross had their first proper kiss, and Finn pushed any ideas out of his head. If this was any indication, Poe did like him. “I think I want a cat.”

Poe shifted once again and looked up into Finn’s face. They were dangerously close and Poe wanted to just move those last few inches, but he thought better of it because he wasn’t stupid. “I think that’s a good idea.” As if on cue, Kylo hopped up onto the couch and assessed the situation. The cat’s stub tail was at full mast and his huge black ears were on full alert as he pressed his face to Finn’s arm. The younger man could have laughed at how much the pet was like his master: lean, demanding of attention, but yet totally self-reliant (not to mention with penetrating eyes, stunningly soft hair, and one of the most handsome things he had seen in, quite possibly, his whole life).

“Shit,” swore Poe. Finn snapped out of his muse and looked to the coffee table where Poe’s errant foot had knocked a plate to the floor. It had to be said that, predictably, none of Poe’s plates matched, much less his silverware, and Finn was 100% certain that the man had picked them up out of thrift shops all through town, but only one of each set. In fact, Finn doubted that Poe even bought anything in his apartment at full value from a legitimate store, because any time Finn commented on something in Poe’s colorful apartment, the firefighter was quick to say that it came from a relative or was a conquest of a yard-sale, dumpster dive, or thrift shop excursion.

Finn, on the other hand, preferred sleek lines and anything made by IKEA, save for his bed. But to be fair, their furniture was about the only thing that hadn’t bled into each other’s spaces. Colorful blankets and pillows (because Poe was undoubtedly a nester) had invaded Finn’s pristine white couch and one of those fake green shrub balls that sat in an oddly-shaped bowl was sitting on Poe’s book shelf, because Kylo had dismantled it and Poe hoped valiantly that Finn wouldn’t notice the bits where the fuzz fell off.

“There is a Humane Society around here, right?” Poe moved away from Finn (blessedly) and picked up his plate. He sucked some pizza sauce that had attacked his finger from the plate, but made the mistake of looking back at Finn, finger still firmly latched in his mouth. The veteran blushed indecently and his pupils blew to impossible size, his breath hitching.

‘A good sign,’ thought Poe. “Yeah, down on 24th.” He honestly didn’t think about how he drew his finger over his lip before letting his arm drop to his side, but Finn noticed, nor did he realize that his tongue darted out to tuck his lower lip between his teeth, but it happened.

“Don’t look at me like that,” muttered Finn. 

“Like what?” Poe’s eyes grew in size, mocking innocence, but suddenly a smile crept into his features. 

“Stop!” sighed the veteran. “You need some sleep.”

Poe snorted and Finn flicked his wrist forward to slap Poe’s thigh. Finn tried a different approach, “Can we go tomorrow?”

“No, I’m getting re-evaluated. Leia wanted to be absolutely sure I was fine, and I was okay months ago, but you can imagine how she is.”

“She’s been giving Kylo dirty looks since he scratched you that one day.” Finn finally stood and scratched the aforementioned cat behind the ears. The animal closed his eyes and flopped over, claiming the couch as his own. “But, good luck. This means you won’t be around much, then?”

“No. I just might have to dash away from our Friends marathons. That is, assuming I’m cleared. Who knows, Leia may want me on bedrest, and I swear this is not from not trying to get back on. I’ve been so bored…”

Finn’s face fell a little, but Poe didn’t notice. At the lack of response, Poe sighed and moved forward to clap Finn on the shoulder. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, buddy.”

“Yeah,” was the grunted response. They stood for a moment, just staring at each other, and then Finn turned, gave Kylo one more pat, and left.

Poe padded down the hall to his bedroom, having heard his door close quietly. He stripped off his shirt and shucked his jeans into a pile and pulled on a soft navy blue shirt and plaid pajama pants. He raked a hand through his curls in exhaustion, but stopped where the stitches in his head had been. He still rather vividly remembered charging into that building foolishly, hardly thinking about how much one event could change his life. But at the same time, he was too tired to really do a full-blown analysis of his life. Poe drew back the covers and crawled into bed, curling into himself and pulling the covers up to his chin. He was warm and happy there, and soon felt the haze of sleep flirting with his consciousness. 

“Poe?” How long had it been? Surely Poe had only just gotten into bed, but the clock suggested differently, With a gentle sigh and his eyes slowly opening, the firefighter glanced toward the door of his bedroom. Finn stood there, chest bare in the streetlight that came in from the window and for a moment, Poe was sure he was dreaming, but Finn was coming toward him. 

“I know, it’s been hours since I left, but I just...I’m really glad you made it and I don’t know why but the nightmares…” Sometimes, Finn was kept awake with the memories of fighting in a barren wasteland, and Poe didn’t blame him. He’d shared it too, when the lives he’d failed to save made their rounds in his subconscious and slipped forward. They used to stay up, have some tea, and even a few times Poe had sang old folk songs when there was nearly a week of four hour nights, but tonight, Poe was too damn tired and Finn looked too damn immaculate. 

Scooting over in his bed, Poe patted the place he made next to him. “I have to be up early tomorrow, so sorry if my alarm wakes you.” He didn’t stay awake for the response, but if Poe was honest, that night he had one of the better sleeps of his life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter. I had a bit of a change in writing style. Everything happens, such as pet adoption, disaster, and kisses in the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We get ridiculously metaphorical at the end. You've been warned.

The fire hall was roughly four blocks away, and so it was a quick walk the next morning to work. The building was somewhat old with sandstone bricks and brilliant red garage doors. “Yavin County Volunteer Fire Department” was blazoned across the top in gold lettering and red trim, and Poe was more than a little proud of how sleek and classy the station looked. 

Leia was one of the only people who was actually paid at the fire station. Since she was also the chief, she also got her own office, which to be fair was a depressing little room with one window that had offensive fluorescent lighting and yellowed, dusty blinds. But she made it her own, with a tiny dalmatian statue and a photo of the nicer times when Han was alive and Ben was younger.

“Chief Organa.” Poe knocked on her semi-open door and waited for her reply before letting himself in. The room was a little stuffy from the hot summer and the small fan on Leia’s desk wasn’t helping matters. The firefighter could already feel the sweat beading at his temple. 

“Poe, I’m so glad that you’re well.” She stood from behind her desk and came to give him a hug. She was shorter that he, but she gave great hugs, and Poe was relieved to be wrapped in her arms again. Finn wasn’t the best at affection and so actually getting a chance to show some was refreshing to the firefighter. And Poe knew that Finn was very much interested in affection by the way he was always unconsciously moving to be closer to Poe or patting his shoulder to get his attention or pressing more of his body than was necessary into the slightly shorter man. Sometimes, it was as if Finn seemed afraid that Poe might vanish out of thin air. 

Chief Leia pulled away and assessed her favorite worker. His hair had grown over his scar and if you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t see it. The bruising around his face and what had been visible above his shirt was gone, and he looked quite well. The Latino could feel the warmth radiating from her eyes as she looked at him as if he were her own son. Ben, her biological offspring, was off ‘doing his own thing,’ as she put it. She was sore about it, and so having Poe around sometimes made the nights a little shorter. 

“You’ve had your evaluations done and seem to have cleared them. And your friend has been taking good care of you?”

“Finn’s been wonderful.” Leia didn’t miss the dreaminess in the firefighter’s eyes as he said it, and she smiled at him, her mind racing to long-lost times.

“Then, Poe Dameron, I’m officially putting you back on call. Just don’t stick around to have a picnic in a structural failure.” Despite the joke, Leia’s face remained solemn. Poe nodded in understanding as his bright eyes searched her face.

“Thanks, Chief.” He pulled her in and pressed his lips to her forehead, and the tension that she held in her shoulders suddenly went away.

~~~

Car accidents and fires abounded in the summer months. Usually, Poe told Finn not to wait up as night after night Poe was called away. And night after night, Finn felt like he was playing a roulette letting his friend go. Often he came back with hidden scrapes and bruises and Finn had to patch him up, to talk him through the horrors that he saw.

And so often, Poe immediately returned the favor. Finn was damned good at compartmentalizing. It had been his job for four years. But whatever eked through the walls that he had built was strong enough to double him over, blind him, have him desperately feeling for Poe’s hand when the too-bright lights and the noise from the TV had long since been shut off. 

Slowly, they worked their way to becoming each other’s anchors, smoothing hair, lacing fingers together, whispering condolences, and singing old songs into the night until they were both too exhausted to speak anymore or Poe was called away again.

But despite Poe telling Finn not to wait up, Finn did anyway. He couldn’t sleep knowing that his best friend was off somewhere charging into a burning building, expertly saving people and the things that, at the end of the day, people valued most.

Poe knew this because the walls were paper thin, even through the hallways, and the shower in Finn’s place never stole the hot water from his until he came back.

~~~

Yavin County Humane Society was, like all humane societies, packed to the roof with a steady stream of dogs and cats. The baying and yipping of dogs large and small was quite the assault to Poe and Finn’s ears, but they pressed onward through the outside kennels to the main desk of the humane society. There was a larger lady with brilliant red hair who wore shirt that had too many cats on it to count, and she was typing hastily away, filling out some paperwork.

“Good morning, guy--Oh! Hi, Poe.” She offered him a huge smile. She got up and limped over to him and gave him a big hug. “Poe’s returned a dozen cats and dogs in the past few months, and so he’s a decently familiar face around here.” 

The firefighter had the grace to blush. 

“He even came in here once singing to a little kitten who was quaking in her boots, but I’m sorry. I’m Sharon.” The woman extended her hand to Finn, who took it and shook it firmly. 

“Finn,” he said, trying not to smile too widely at the idea of Poe singing to a cat, most likely swaying while he had her up on his shoulder. 

“So what are you boys looking for today?” She leaned back against the counter that separated her desk from the rest of the place and looked between them, her smile widening a little more when she met Poe’s eyes. 

“I moved into my place a few months ago,” began Finn, “And I met Poe’s cat, Kylo, and I thought I should get one for myself.”

“Good, so your apartment allows animals. Well, we actually found this little one a few weeks ago, poor thing had some of her fur singed off, was missing some whiskers, and had a little hole in her ear, but the vets checked her and saw she’d be okay. Not a kitten, mind you, just small. Care to see her?”

Poe had explained to Finn the euthanization rates and Finn’s pulse quickened. The poor thing was probably horribly ugly, but he said he’d have a look.

“She was injured in a fire?” Finn’s curiosity helped some in calming him.

“We think so, but she came to us all by herself, starving and in need of attention.” Sharon opened the door to the cat room and let the two young men inside. “She’s right there on the left.”

Finn found her immediately, because she got up on her hind legs, her front paws pressing against the cage, and hissed.

“She doesn’t like strangers too much,” admitted Sharon, “But she’ll warm up to you.”

Finn reached his fingers into the cage to pet her, and she sniffed the digits carefully before letting him stroke her head. She was orange with subtle white stripes and she had a small hole in her right ear, but she had bright green eyes and soon arched her back and pressed her side against the cage so that Finn could pet the rest of her.

“Can I take her out and play with her?”

Poe and Sharon exchanged looks, and Sharon opened her mouth. “Well, only if you’re really interested in her…”

“Do you want her, Finn?” Poe had this terrible (to behold, that is) soft smile on his face that made Finn’s eyes go wide. He played it off as excitement in the possibility of getting a cat soon, not the feeling that was becoming too familiar in his stomach whenever Poe showed his astounding tenderness.

“Y-yeah,” the taller man stuttered. She’s great.”

“Once she warms up to you, she’s a little ray of sunshine. That’s why we call her Sunny.” The woman unlocked Sunny’s cage and pulled her out. She squirmed, but finally set her eyes on Finn and craned her neck to sniff him. Claws completely outstretched, she reached for him and hopped onto his shoulder. 

“Now, I know it’s not protocol, but Poe’s saved enough pets to make him an honorary employee. As a token of our gratitude, we’ll waive a lot of the paperwork, such as references. I trust he knows how to keep track of a little one.” Sharon headed over to her desk and pulled out a pile of paperwork. “How’s Kylo?”

~~~

‘Sunny’ came home that day. Poe and Finn had to buy a cat carrier from the humane society and Finn carried the cat carrier around the pet store with the cat inside while they bought toys, food, and dishes for her to eat and drink out of. The cat meowed the entire time.

“I don’t think you’re a ‘Sunny,’” said Finn once they had bought all of the supplies and loaded them into the car. “I’d go for something like Queenie, maybe.”

The firefighter flinched. 

“Reya,” Poe offered. “That’s queen in Spanish.” Poe took a turn a little too harshly. The cat complained, and Finn yelled out in surprise. 

“Rey?”

“I mean, that’s the term for ‘king,’ but suit yourself.” 

“No. I mean...they called her a ray of sunshine. And like queen, I don’t know. It’s like a phoneme or something.” 

Poe’s eyes slid over to meet Finn’s. “You should have her closed in one of your rooms. Preferably one that has a fan or air conditioning so she doesn’t cook.”

They were approaching the apartment and Poe parked. Usually, it was difficult to find a spot nearby since there were so many people who lived there. Finn kept the cat and Poe took the supplies. They took the rickety elevator and Poe grumbled how it was most definitely a fire hazard and he would know.

But when they hit Finn’s door, Poe’s pager beeped. 

“Dameron, code red at YCHS.” Poe tugged the radio off of his waistband and pressed it to his mouth.

“Is that HS like MS, or?”

“Humane Society.”

Poe actually dropped his pager and was glad he had set the cat supplies down. Finn had finally managed to get the door open and prop it with the cat carrier by the time he could turn around and see Poe’s head popping out of a dark blue firefighter’s shirt that had “Yavin County Fire Department” emblazoned over the heart.

“I’ll see you for dinner.” A black lock had fallen onto his forehead and connected his scalp to his eyebrow. It was endearing and Finn had the grace to keep his mouth shut as he stared, but a more cautious feeling welled up inside of him that he didn’t want to address. 

“Poe…” He was dashing off again, and Finn didn’t like it. He’d been dancing around his feelings for a while and maybe he wasn’t being super obvious about it. The worry still haunted him, like the memories that he was fighting back. One of these times, maybe Poe wouldn’t come back. And Finn wasn’t prepared to properly say goodbye to him without...well, he just wasn’t prepared.

But Poe had to go save the animals, and so Finn brushed off the screaming in his heart. “I’ll tell you when you come back.”

~~~

It was hours to the point of Finn worrying. Poe, of course, couldn’t text on the job because he had to focus, but it wasn’t once that the veteran found himself already mourning the loss of his best friend. He played with Rey and pet her and taught her where the kitty litter box was, but as he sat in his bedroom and ate Chinese leftovers, he couldn’t help but stop just after swallowing a piece of tofu and wait for the knot in his throat to subside and allow him to continue. 

It didn’t help that Rey started pawing at the bedroom door frantically. Nor did it help that once Finn opened the door, he saw black smoke, thick and acrid, pouring in from under his front door.

~~~

Finn had been in combat zones before. He had done his job well in being a soldier in a war where you shot the ‘bad guy,’ whoever he was. There was us, and there was them. It was simple, in a chaotic and regimented way.

A structural fire is simply chaos. Walls appear that weren’t there before. Staircases are steeper. You carry two squirming animals out of someone else’s fire escape and nearly choke in the process. 

But you remember your training. You remember to crawl and how to hold your buddy still when he’s wounded. 

But once you remember that, you remember everything, and you’d wish the building would come crashing down on you rather that the weight, the fire, the steel, the heat, and the choking, crippling power of those memories.

Because if you panicked in a war zone, you could still breathe. If you panicked in the cracking and popping and roaring in a structural fire, you weren’t so lucky. 

~~~

The response time of Yavin County VFD didn’t take into account two massive fires at once, but Poe’s ladder had managed to get things under control and were off to the next one.

Snap had typed in the address to the GPS before Poe had taken a look at it, and so he blindly drove, sirens blaring and lights flashing through the town of Yavin. He whizzed by the diner, its lights blinking in content nostalgia. 

And all of a sudden, with the instructions that Snap was giving him, Poe could feel his heart thudding in his chest. His adrenaline spiked and he bit his lip to hold back the stream of curses that were threatening to tumble out into the chaos of the truck’s roaring engine and wailing sirens. He white-knuckled the steering wheel. His breaths came in short bursts and Snap eyed him with concern.

“Dameron? Buddy, you alright?” Snap’s hand was on Poe’s shoulder and the firefighter felt sick. He was going to puke. He opened his mouth to reply as he swung the huge piece of machinery around the last corner, but all that came out was a strangled whimper.

~~~

It was so hot. 

Finn tried to open his eyes, but the smoke burned his eyes so badly that he could only see harsh blackness through his tears. Something warm and slippery coated his hands and he didn’t have to see to know it was blood. He didn’t know where he was or how he got there, but there was a rhythmic thumping somewhere. Maybe in his chest. No, his chest didn’t sound like the splintering of wood.

Taking a bloody hand, he wiped the tears away and edged his foot forward, wherever that was. The dull roar of the flames was farther away now. Finn tried to move with the direction of the smoke, figuring that it was heading out a window, and he wanted to be out of that window. Hopefully it was the one that Kylo and Rey had escaped from.

The crunch of static. The thunking stopped, and a muffled voice called out into the room. Finn heard his name.

“Finn? Buddy? Can you hear me?” Heavy boots shuffled in Finn’s direction. The voice was so calm and he was moving so slowly. Finn finally had the strength to push himself forward, but it hurt. It hurt like his spine was separating from his body, as if the entire fire was in his central nervous system, like someone was taking a rusty blade to him.

But Finn’s throat was too dry to scream, so he cried. The tears were grainy and felt like they boiled on his face.

And all the while, Poe’s voice was coming closer and closer to him, more and more urgent. Finn wished he could have called out, but all of a sudden, a boot came down two inches from his face. And despite the huge amount of pain it caused him, Finn reached out and wrapped his hand around the firefighter’s boot. 

The body froze, and all of a sudden Poe was crouching in front of him. Finn could just make out his eyes and the beginnings of his cheekbones through his helmet, but it was Poe. Finn was sure of it. 

“Can you hear me? Can you move? Finn, squeeze my boot if you need me to call up a stretcher. Squeeze my boot if you can’t get up and walk out of here.”

Finn tried to move his legs, but it hurt too badly. He flinched, and Poe saw it. For a moment, his eyes wavered to something behind Finn. Fear that was reserved for a buddy bleeding out in the blazing white sand filled Poe’s eyes, and if it didn’t feel like a dragon breathing down his spine, Finn would have squirmed up to soothe Poe. He would have said that he’d be okay. 

Instead, Finn squeezed Poe’s boot.

~~~

Once Finn got to the hospital and was admitted into surgery, all Poe could do was wait for him. And so he did. Outside, the stars were bright, but also outside were people smoking. Now, normally, Poe was vehemently against the idea. He didn’t mind the smell so much as the addictive effects, of course. And being a walking fire hazard also had no appeal to him.

The woman who was smoking outside eyed him up, but with a shrug, she wordlessly offered him what she had in her hand. It was ironic to be smoking outside of a hospital, but at this point Poe had nothing to lose. His best friend was in surgery and would be lucky to wake up. If he did wake up, odds were he’d be paralyzed for the rest of his life. So really, what did Poe have to lose? 

He took the cigarette from her and inhaled.

~~~

It took Finn a whole week to wake up. With the amount of carbon monoxide in his body and his vicious spinal injury, every EMT and nurse that Poe ran into said he was lucky to be alive, even if in a coma. 

Poe didn’t know that it would take a week. He’d heard about comas and how some people never woke up from them. He’d also heard that sometimes you could read to them or play music or just simply talk to them because they could sometimes hear you. 

Poe didn’t want Finn to feel lonely. The fireman was there as long as possible, sometimes reading the news to Finn, sometimes holding his hand, and sometimes he brought his guitar and sang him their favorite songs. 

He got called out to fires and accidents and everything as usual. He holed up with Snap for a while with Kylo and Rey, both of which had made it out with singed fur, and that was the worst of it. The other firefighters, Chief Organa included, had the good grace to ask after Finn. Poe said he was on the upswing every time until Leia asked him after he helped pull a lost kitten out of a tree. The little ball of fuzz reminded him so much of Rey. Poe remembered that he hadn’t seen that cats in a few days. The nurses were kind enough to let Poe stick around the hospital, haunting it late at night as Finn continued to sleep. 

Poe had lost weight. His face was drawn and huge bags hung under his eyes. His skin hung a little looser on his muscles. He’d been running on coffee and whatever could be bought from the vending machine down the hall. He didn’t dare leave Finn’s side to go to the cafeteria lest he wake up alone. He’d had enough nightmares and had lived most of them, and he wasn’t waking up alone. He just wasn’t.

~~~

It was day six. Poe, in the past week, averaged four hours of sleep a night. He was running on the fumes of fumes, but he still sang and he still read. But tonight, as he and his near-roommate held hands, the smallest twitch of Finn’s index finger sparked delirium.

The firefighter had almost missed it, and for a moment he thought he had imagined it. But Finn’s finger was applying a little more pressure than he had for days. 

“Finn? Buddy? Can you hear me?”

They were the words he had said six days ago. A poor choice. But the next ones Poe didn’t think about or what they really meant until they had come out of his mouth, breathless and fast as he tried to take the other ones back. He didn’t dare follow up with them. He simply said, “Please don’t leave me.”

~~~

Poe got the call just as he stepped out of the shower. By order of Leia, Snap had taken him out of the hospital (nearly by brute force) and took him home. 

The orders were as follows:  
1\. Poe got a shower.  
2\. Poe ate a decent meal.  
3\. Poe got ten hours of sleep.

Part one was a great success. Snap was blushing like a fiend as Poe stripped in the middle of his kitchen. In Poe’s defense, the washing machine was in the kitchen, and on top of that Snap had seen him naked plenty of times (he did _shower_ after a fire, thank you very much).

Snap cringed at Poe’s pale ass as it flew by him. Poe’s phone was pressed to his ear through his wet curls and he was scrounging around in the living room that pretended to be half of a bedroom to find a pair of underwear and pants and a shirt.

Snap went to do laundry when he got a glimpse of Poe’s dick. It wasn’t like it made him uncomfortable, in a normal sense. It was just that he was clumsily throwing on clothes and he didn’t match worth a damn but Snap wasn’t going to judge.

Poe was on his 26th hour straight of being awake, but it didn’t stop him from begging Snap (fully clothed, now) to take him to see Finn. Snap wanted to say no, he really did. Poe should sleep. Finn would be there in the morning, and a delirious firefighter wasn’t what the poor veteran needed right now.

“He _asked_ for me, Snap. I have to go.”

“Poe…” Snap was tired. They had had three accidents that had taken way longer than they were supposed to (fuel was leaking all over the place on the one). If Poe could focus on anything other than Finn, he’d see that, but he was killing himself over this kid. Orders were orders, though, and Leia would have his neck if Poe was too tired and made a mistake that got someone hurt, or worse.

“I can’t. I get it, man, I do. But you gotta sleep.”

“Give me your car keys.” Poe’s eyes were wild. His outstretched hand was demanding, calloused, and still red from the shower. So help him, he would drive Snap’s goddamn car across town to the hospital if he had to fight the other firefighter for it.

“You haven’t slept in over a day!”

“So?”

“For fuck’s sake, Dameron. You better promise me that you take tomorrow off as a sick day and _sleep_ or I swear to God--”

Poe bit his lip in thought. His eyes were glazed over, and really it was more of a moment in time rather than an actual thought process. “Yeah, yeah, Okay.”

“Get in the car. I’ll wait in the parking lot.” 

~~~

Finn was barely awake when Poe stumbled in, but the veteran turned his head and smiled. 

“Poe,” he rasped. He sounded like his throat was made of sandpaper. “I heard--” He was cut off by a cough that shook his whole body. He winced in pain, scrunching his face up with watering eyes. The firefighter lurched forward and snatched for Finn’s hand gracelessly. He had done it so often when Finn was asleep, and it was the shocked look on Finn’s face that made Poe realize that what he had done would seem odd.

“I’m...sorry--” He tried to pull away, but Finn’s grip tightened on his hand. “I wasn’t here when you woke up. Snap pulled me...he said that I had to go because Leia was going to drag me out of here herself--”

“You’re here.” Finn’s voice sounded so awful. He hadn’t gotten around to sitting up yet, but Poe knew from spending ages in the hospital how he had these bandages all over his back from a beam that had bludgeoned his spine almost irreparably. There were new metal disks in Finn’s back and he might have issues walking and standing for long periods of time. But with enough PT, he might get all of his functionality back.

His mind was another matter. For now, he seemed alright, but there might be things that take a while to surface, like the details that he would have never forgotten if he hadn’t inhaled as much smoke as he had. He might have momentary bouts of amnesia.

To the nurses, Poe was as good as family and they told him as much. That, and when Poe started he had a clear, winning smile that needed to get him as much information as possible. Now, he sent them one tired, pleading look, and they couldn’t ignore their consciences.

Either way, Poe had to break off and grab a glass of water so that Finn could get a drink. He held the straw to the veteran’s lips and he drank greedily. 

“I heard you.” After a deep gulp, Finn offered a small smile. “When you started talking about your hate for asparagus, I think, is what I remember first.”

Poe didn’t even remember that he didn’t like asparagus. But he didn’t remember a lot of things at this point. Like how he was sitting on the end of the bed and was nearly wrapped into Finn. The veteran couldn’t move, but the firefighter found himself sitting on the bed toying with the soft blanket. All of a sudden, Poe broke into a huge smile.

“I love you, buddy.”

_Oh, shit._

That wasn’t supposed to come out of Poe’s mouth. It wasn’t even that he meant it in the most sincere way. He definitely had feelings for Finn, but God help him if he could find a better way to say it.

~~~

Afterword, and for a month, Finn didn’t speak to Poe. Poe tried to talk to him after sleeping for a solid fourteen hours straight, but the nurses said that Finn was in rehab. Already. They’d call him when he was up for visitors again.

It took a month. Then the PT was over, and Finn was discharged. But Poe had finally gotten another apartment and had been taking care of the cats and he actually slept now. It was a shitty sleep that he woke up too often in, but it kept his bones from aching.

And slowly, he moved on. The Veteran’s Affairs Hospital would help him. Or they’d call him.

Life, as wholly as it knew how, returned back to normal. It wasn’t until they saw each other at the diner (Poe, early on, had told Moz what had happened) that they spoke.

~~~

Poe was working on taking an order when Finn walked in. 

“Finn.” The name came out of Poe’s mouth like it was a surprise, and Poe’s hand stuttered to a halt on the page. “Welcome--”

“I need to talk to you. When are you off?” 

A car drove by, headlights glistening in the mist that was falling outside. Poe shuffled and took a glance at the neon clock above the door to the kitchen where he could see Phasma and Hux talking very closely to each other. Phasma blew a bubble and Hux broke it with his teeth, and then went in for a kiss. 

“Ten. I’ll be done at ten. Are you…?”

“No. I can’t. My PT instructor said that I needed to take it easy, that I should get a job maybe somewhere where I can sit a lot.”

Poe nodded. He could tell that Finn hated the idea, but...he hadn’t talked to him in a month. No texting, nothing. He hadn’t seen him, or anything. 

Finn had a seat at the bar where he could watch Poe work. Wordlessly, Poe got him a coffee, one sugar and two creams like he liked it, and didn’t say anything to him until his shift was over.

~~~

Poe’s last coherent words to Finn were that he loved him. Later, Finn learned that Poe had barely slept for a week, and that he had forced Snap to take him to the hospital against everything his body and his commanding officer had told him.

And he said, “I love you.”

Finn knew he wasn’t in his right mind, but he also knew that at a certain point, being so tired, you might as well have been drunk, and as the saying goes, the only honest people are drunks and babies.

So when Poe’s shift was over, Finn stood and led him out of the diner. It was raining properly now, and Finn had walked. He led the way across the parking lot and across the street to their own building. It was a carcass now, and one that was half-torn down, at that. They stood together in the rain. Poe didn’t dare say a word until Finn started. He simply stood there in the cold and wet and let the rain dampen his hair and his shoulders. 

“It never rained like this in Afghanistan.”

Silence.

“We’d have huge downpours, so bad that there’d be flooding and homes would get washed away. Never seemed to happen to us, though.”

Poe’s pockets were heavy with the weight of his new habit. It had helped him through the nights when the coffee machines broke down, and he didn’t think now as he pulled the carton out of his pocket and the lighter that went with it. He had made it special and reveled in the irony of YCFD being engraved in it. Finn was less than impressed, but didn’t say anything.

“How long has that been a thing?” The veteran dug his hands into his pockets. His throat had healed, but the smell of the tobacco burned something vicious and set him on edge. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet.

“Do you really want an answer to that?” Poe exhaled and Finn wondered what the hell had happened all this time. A month and six days. Finn could already see the effects. He’d vaguely registered that Poe didn’t look well when he had woken up and seen him, but now, the skin under his eyes was sagging and his hair hadn’t been as curly as it used to be when he was dry in the diner. And he was thin. He looked like he had lost roughly ten to fifteen pounds. His clothes were loose on his frame.

By the second drag, Finn had had enough. With as much ferocity as he could muster, he plucked the cigarette from Poe’s lips and threw it to the ground, extinguishing it with his shoe. Not that it needed much help. It was drizzling pretty heavily. Finn didn’t know why he felt compelled to lean up against a random car in the parking lot, but it seemed fair as he studied Poe’s reaction. 

Those dark eyes held something strange in them. It wasn’t sadness, because Poe wasn’t that petty. There was some loneliness, and some despair, but at the same time, Finn could see the ease of relief. Poe’s brow had softened. He looked at Finn carefully, bracing himself for a lecture. The same lecture that he had been waiting for for the past month.

“Did you mean what you said?” It was a simple question, really. And Poe knew exactly what Finn was talking about, yet he felt compelled to question exactly what Finn was talking about. 

But it hit him. It hit him like an axe through a door, shattering all of the self-pity that he had wallowed in for the past few weeks. So what if he had said something stupid? If Finn didn’t care about him, he wouldn’t have come to the diner on a Tuesday night at eight o’clock, which is when he knew that Poe worked, because they used to work the same shift together. He wouldn’t have accepted the coffee that Poe had given him. He wouldn’t have shown such hurt and disappointment at Poe’s new habit. He wouldn’t have pushed him away, because the nurses had to have told him what might very well happen to him.

Finn had been hiding. He didn’t dare let Poe see him first with a walker, trying to regain his balance, and then with a cane, shuffling forward one step at a time, and falling again and again, jarring his back in pain. Finn didn’t want Poe to see him struggle to remember his best friend’s name or the name of their cats or his room number back where he used to live. 2187. It was his bane. He hated that number. 2187. A boy used to live there. He was young and worried about the state of the world. He fell in love with another boy who had a strong jaw and gorgeous eyes.

2187 was the last thing to come when they did the memory tests. He could remember his name, what he had done before he met Poe, and where he used to work. But he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember his room number. It took until just a few days ago, after he could nearly jog at a decent pace, to remember those glittering golden letters. He remembered that all of them were the same color, unlike across the hall.

A boy lived in 2187. And when the boy left there one month and six days ago, he changed forever. 

But the thing is, change is scary, and you never know how it’s going to turn out.

Poe Dameron was thinking the same thing when he said, “I’ve never said anything to you that I didn’t mean.”

So the change was that Finn didn’t say things as if he were answering orders, as if some unknown, rigid force owned his life. He was fierce. He was accusatory. He was demanding in a way that he hadn’t been before, because if he was honest with himself (and he never told the nurses this), he wouldn’t have kissed Poe that night. The damn firefighter would make an excuse and Finn would let him off on it. Tonight, Finn was no longer the boy in 2187. 

When Finn had asked whether Poe meant what he said when he said that he loved him, Finn wanted to know that it was still true. And if it were still true, that was good because Finn loved Poe enough to steal himself away. Trauma was only half as bad for the victim than it was with whom the victim loved. 

They didn’t teach you that in the military, but you learned it anyway. The fatally wounded had the luxury of death. It was his comrades that had to soldier on.

“I’m so sorry,” said Finn after a long silence. More silence followed but for the patter of the rain. The children in Afghanistan would run and hide when the thunderstorms came. They came rarely. A boy hid from the elements.

The men continued to work the fields through the rain. They continued to sow and tend their flocks. A man stood in the rain.

Eventually, Poe closed some of the space between them. He laced his fingers through Finn’s and gripped him tight, as if he were afraid that Finn would wash away.

The redness in his eyes gave him away; that it wasn’t the rain on his face this time that made it wet. Finn had spent a month and six days learning how to read people. And Poe Dameron was a sheet of paper with size seventy-two font. And so as they stood in the rain, tiny droplets of hydrogen and oxygen falling all around them, soaking into the ground and running into the sewers, an Afghanistan combat veteran gently lifted a firefighter’s chin with his thumb and forefinger and touched their lips together.

Like any good thunderstorm, they started very softly, slowly. Trying the ground to see how it gave, pressing a little harder where it knew it had been parched. And as the winds picked up, the trees rustled, fingers carding through hair, tugging, insistent, a body of wind slamming against the stability of an ancient oak. And finally, all hell broke loose. Torrents and torrents of needy rains that hadn’t spilled in ages buffeted the landscape. Their mouths crashed together like thunder as it rolled through a desert. Their teeth scraped against each other, tongues swirling like rivers flirting with another stream, lips biting like the lightning strikes the ground and sends jolts of nitrogen to the starving plants, the rains ever present, soothing and carving their own rivulets in the memory of the earth.

~~~

And like any good farmer, they dealt with change. Big changes, like finding a place together and moving the cats and quitting smoking.

And little changes, like figuring out that no, you can’t kiss in public whenever you want, even when Finn’s finally returned to the diner (but if they take their breaks together, they can sneak into the stockroom and make-out for fifteen minutes).

The change, they came to find, was good. It wasn’t always easy, but Finn and Poe had each other as anchors, mooring each other when the nights were long and the hurricanes came.

Poe Dameron and Finn were two men who stood in the rain, sowing their crops and tending their herds. And when the harvest came, what bounty did they share.


End file.
